


Mission: In Progress

by cathtice



Series: Mission [1]
Category: Aberrant (RPG)
Genre: Original Character(s), Role-Playing Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 02:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10548166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathtice/pseuds/cathtice
Summary: On the way to war.





	1. After the Attack

Our Father, who listens to all prayers, answer, please; answer me this.

Is it right that I burn out falsehood and control and lies, if in return for one man in every five I burn out his life? They don't have the choice. For my actions, thirty men are dead; emptied of self and reborn blank and clean, they were killed by the boys who defended themselves and their land against anyone who would take it.

The infection is more than just one man's words and other men's lost faith. He gives them no choice.

But... he speaks on camera and in newspapers, and so far, the world hasn't fallen to him. His men infect and infect again by touch, but his reach hasn't gone past these cities. Why not? What limits him? It looks like it should have spread like a plague, further than I could reach even if I gorged myself on the sun and on the dregs of quantum that run through this world. 

We know where Totentanz and Stonewall went. Is this where he'll be? It looks like the most defensible place they have - they live like they're at war. If it is there, what would happen if I burnt out his infection there? One man in five would be brainless, emptied - and... maybe one man in ten or twenty might Erupt. And that could kill even more. 

They do not die. They are given another chance to live - but is that any better? I need to talk with someone who'll listen to my confession and who won't think I'm mocking, someone who's disinterested. I wish I could talk to Rick. 

It's strange. I don't miss Sentinel. I miss talking with Rick, and I miss being in a place where I speak the language, but... this is a new city, a new people, and still I can recognise the ideas that are human and universal. It's fascinating and exciting and keeps me awake and breathless, even while I rest at night out of everyone's way. I can see the city - the country - the continent, all the lights spanning out slightly differently to how I'd expected it. It's a job - my job. Maybe the best job in the world; being able to find a new place with a new problem and know that we _can_ solve it in some way. 

...I think we can solve it, at least. It hurts; it hurts to see the boys lying blank and empty, but I remember how the Knights (knights and paladins? Are we trading one set of tyrants for another? The only thing I know for sure is that the knights don't have the novas to turn the world to their way of thinking.) took their people back. 

What care is available for mental patients in this world? ...What's it like anywhere? If I do this often, then... Or is it only that that's how it works here? Fire is the same wherever you are; but am I the same, now I've moved to another place in space and time?


	2. After the Block

It was meant. 

To make them better.

It was meant to fix things.

I meant to rebuild and recover. To restore and give rebirth.

And now I 

I

I can't. They were.

Gone.

Where is Rick? Or Father David?

I am alone here. And. 

The only people who speak to me are alien.

I Meant To Bring Them Back.

There's something, edging through the fuzz of heat and exhaustion, that is going to make me stop, if I let it.

My heart's on fire. 

My lungs are burning.

My stomach is empty.

It's probably shock. I'm in shock, post-traumatic stress and all sorts of things.

A quantum ghost; like the creature that hides in Hugh's head. (I wonder what will happen to that; if I can burn it out at home. If that will burn him out instead.)

It was exorcised. It took them with it. 

The Nietzchean's teachings are mind-deep; so the fire burns out their minds. The quantum ghost's plague was soul-deep; the fire burnt out the impurities - and their souls with it. 

I can burn out disease; infection. not all infections are of the body.

I awaken channels that weren't there before. 

I killed. 

I don't know how many people I killed.

I try to remember the man's face, as he clutched at his son's healed shoulders; confusion and alarm and desperate hope.

I try not to remember the kitchen knives hammered into the wall at shoulder-height on a ten year old, and the gun in the man's hand.

I didn't get there soon enough. 

They were infected because I didn't think to try to heal a mostly-invisible quantum ghost before she left the prison cell.

They were killed because I thought to heal them only afterwards.

The first time this happened, the men whose minds I'd emptied were killed by someone else because of what I did. 

This time, the bodies charred on the floor I killed because of what someone else did.

Does this mean that in either case my responsibility is lessened?

no.

Never that.

I can only do penance by keeping as many people alive as I can.

What kind of world is it, where I calculate who needs to die - to be killed before their time - to keep the most people alive?

Why do I have the right to choose?

Why do I have to choose?

I don't want to choose. 

...

If I don't choose, who will?

I want peace; I want Rick, and I want to hide in space, where the rocking of celestial currents and dark matter mean I kill no one and nothing; where I can't hear the screams I cause and can't smell their burning muscle and fat.

I need to talk to Mercy. Need to see if she can make a net with her mind to protect their souls and memories while I destroy the infection - whether she can act as anaesthesia and scaffolding while I do my crude soul-surgery.

If she were anything more like Crisis, I'd not dare ask.

Elek reminds me a little of Crisis. It's in the studious refusal to lower himself to our level. I think he and the Lady Decados are having the hardest time of being here; Rehana and I at least know a world like this one, and Mercy never knew or understood her own world, so has no problem treading water here. 

I hope they are all happy with how things came out. Mercy said I was right; but then, Mercy would rather die than be controlled. Have we made anything better yet? Erik is... different to how he was. I didn't know that healing someone already well would make a difference. Does it make a difference in my world? If things work differently, then what if I get used to something here and have to un-learn my reactions? (...I don't have very good reactions to people being hurt. I freeze, then try to make it better.)

I'm worried about how much the Lady Decados is drinking. Is this beacuse she doesn't want to be here, with us? Because she's upset all the time by what we do? I tried to be subtle; to not do anything that people would see; but... if I do something, it's obvious, all the time. I can't be any use at all, if we must keep secret.

I don't know how common novas (mutants, post-humans, whatever they call them here) are; I know that they believe that most of the post-humans (...it's the best term for it for everyone) are vampires or werewolves, but they have superhero teams. We should probably talk to any teams based in the EU. Or at least find a friendly news station. It's a bit late to start good biz, though. I think that they're known about, though. I'll check, when I get back from confession.

(I'm distracting myself in trivialities, to try to forget the scorched faces and burst eyeballs of the two women stabbing a nearly-dead man and giggling.)

(when I close my eyes, I can hear them giggling still, their lips pulled back in rictus-grins where the water was blasted out of their bodies; their teeth blackened and charred.) 

(then they raise their knives for me.)

(and I know I have to do this again.)

(I want to go home.)


End file.
